Apple doubles Tiffany's in retail sales per square foot

Apple is once again by far the most valuable retailer based on sales per square foot, more than doubling the sales of Tiffany & Co.

Apple's retail stores earn $6,050 per square foot, according to the latest data from RetailSails. In comparison, Tiffany & Co. is the second most profitable American retailer per square foot, earning $3,017.

Beyond Apple and Tiffany's, no retailer managed to top $2,000 per square foot, as the No. 3 chain lulu lemon athletic earned $1,936.

Apple also cracked the top 10 retailers with the highest overall sales per store. Apple came in at No. 9, behind wholesale retailers like Costco and Sam's Club, as well as Neiman Marcus and Walmart.

The data from RetailSales comes from an analysis of more than 200 American retailers spanning 15 sectors. Together, they operate more than 200,000 stores and generate more than $1.6 trillion in sales.

Apple has consistently been the top earner among U.S. retailers in sales per square foot. Data released earlier this year showed that Apple Stores earn 17 times more than the national average.

2) The more important news is they broke the top 10 sales per store despite their relatively tiny stores. The electronics section of Costco, Sam's and Walmart are probably bigger than most Apple Stores.

3) I expect Apple to grow in the top 10 rapidly. Partially on a presumption of the iPad mini which generates more revenue for the volume it takes up compared to the 10" iPad.

Harder to clean, though it would dampen some sound. It's often difficult to talk at all in an Apple Store.

The noise was my main concern. Commercial carpet is easy to maintain. Other stores seem to do pretty well with a hard surface for a center aisle, but still have carpeted side areas. I think it would make a huge difference.

Almost every large Apple store I've been to has a noise problem. Combine hard floors with hard tables with hard wall surfaces in a cavernous space and you're going to have lots of noise. This is another example of Apple emphasizing visual design over practicality. The smaller mall stores aren't as bad.

Sound gets amplified in those circumstances. I was in the Lincoln Center store one day and thought they had a live band in the lower level. I ran down there and discovered it was just a very small speaker/amp playing iTunes. When Siri was first released, it was almost impossible to test it in that store, due to all the noise.

The problem in the Lincoln Center store and others like it is that on the main level, the "ceiling" is the glass roof and the floor and walls are made of stone. The only thing I can think of that might help a little is putting up sound absorbers on the stone walls and maybe putting up sound baffles around each table. The SoHo (NYC) store, which was the first Apple store in New York, is actually much better in this regard as is the Fifth Avenue store - you can hear a conversation there.